A Challenge to LMJ

I read Mom 101’s most recent post with more than a little empathy. I am trying to hold on to my musical hipness with tooth and nail. I don’t know if what I am about to write is actually insightful or just sour grapes. Popular music has become more and more extreme as time has gone on. Elvis and Little Richard scandalized the world with their blatant sexuality in the ‘50’s. Mick Jagger and Marvin Gaye went further in the 60’s, with Gaye actually taking a meaningful rebellious political stand. Eric Clapton sang about his love of booger sugar in the 70’s. And in the 1980’s, my music, slammed into the ceiling of extreme with Gangsta Rap and Death Metal. In ’84 and ’85 Metallica had between ten and forty thousand kids, depending on where they were, screaming “DIE, DIE, DIE” every night. In ’89 N.W.A. had everyone under twenty-five screaming F&*K the Police. Now those screaming kids are parents with teenagers, and for the first time in popular music history the kids can’t shock the parents with their music. Our parents were shocked by Madonna’s whorish dress and behavior. We think Britney is just kind of sad. Christina Aguilera can’t make us blush with her Dirty video. All we think is wow; she really has a good voice. When are the kids today going to step up and shock us? The last shocking thing that happened in music is when Madonna frenched Britney and Christina Aguilera, and Madonna was the mastermind behind that. She’s gone from bad dancer to bad singer to really bad actress, to not too bad chicken hawk. The only thing today’s kids can do to shock us is start killing people on stage. That hasn’t been done yet, and I’m sure it will shock people. Even though it won’t shock me, unless I don’t get paid since it’s my idea.